Posts by Don Reid
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Hard News: Friday Music: The Curse of…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Well that's a huge chunk of my work day taken care of...
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Yes, Martin Phillipps has always carried the weight of destiny around. 'This is the way, this is the only way for me..." Not the anger against class or generation that pre-occupied the punks, but resigned recognition that this life on the road was going to be hard one. Will always be my favorite band.
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Speaker: Banking on a relationship, in reply to Danielle,
No, not really. Millions of us have kids (myself included) and most of us eat dinner. But few of us get the chance to walk out at 5 and not look back.
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Speaker: Banking on a relationship, in reply to Stephen Day,
Cal me a union member, but I kind of like the idea of a bank where the people who work there have predominantly 9-5 jobs.
For years I agreed, but now (and I'm still embarrassed by it) I find it annoying when staff aren't available. I guess I've been working on salary too long and before that on contracts, getting paid the same no matter how many Sunday mornings and Tuesday nights I do. Nothing gives me phone rage more than a 'we're closed' message at 5.01pm.
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I really like this blog and the message it conveys. But it’s also relevant to remember how hard achieving the balance between work and parenting can be for many people. Short term contracts and the competitive environment the casualization of labour has created as meant (I guess, some would say, ironically) that fewer of us have the flexibility to manage our time to be with our kids more. Or else the stress of a near completed contract without one to replace it can be as detrimental to family life as an absent-at-work parent. I now have a great employer and am employed full time with all the benefits that brings, but prior to that I did a solid eight years on semester-to-semester contracts as an adjunct academic - and these were very tough years financially and emotionally. While I did get plenty of time with the kids, especially over summer, the pleasure of proximity was negated by the stress of poverty. Basically I think ‘people’ understand the desire one might have for a work/life balance (whether they are employers, colleagues or clients), but the ‘systems’ we have still work against this, especially for those climbing the ladder rather than at the top of it.
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Capture: Sweet Jesus and Mary Chain, in reply to JacksonP,
Perhaps, if like me, the crowd were Gen X dads, they were all just rapt to be having a night out.
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Were they grumpy and surly? Hope so…
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I can't defend the art, theories or ideas of old dead white men. But I do admit [while hiding safely behind a sturdy wall] that I do like some of them.
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Hard News: Public Address Word of the…, in reply to chris,
I think Berm Gardener was a minister in Muldoon's first cabinet.
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Can we have acronyms? Through October, I was confused by commentators describing Ritchie McCaw as a ‘goat’. Then I saw it written as G.O.A.T., which, to me, read like a mid-90s Wildside band. Hey I think he’s the ‘Greatest… ‘ , but in written form G.O.A.T. was as ubiquitous as it was confounding.